An Inseparable Nation

2099 Words5 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Relationship between church and state

The Church and the government have been two of the strongest influences on mankind for many centuries. Both powers have received great faithfulness from citizens, yet both receive harsh criticism as well. Many people view these two factions as entirely separate entities; however, this ideology is a fallacy. The government and the Church are two independent institutions that cannot be separated; rather, they must work in conjunction to ensure the happiness of the American people.

Conflicts between the Church and the government have been apparent since before the time of the Romans. The origin of this conflict in the United States can be traced back to the early 1600’s. At this time, the relationship between the Catholic Church and the governments of European and Latin American countries was beginning to flourish (Christianity and the Founders). Many nations shared the Catholic faith, yet the English demonstrated hatred towards Catholics (Christianity and the Founders). Legal punishment of English Catholics was more severe than that of the non-denominational citizens. Catholic conspirers were publicly executed out of spite, and the Anti-Priest law of 1647 threatened death to all clergy (Christianity and the Founders). This general attitude of the people was carried over seas with the colonization of the Americas.

Several colonies during the early 1700’s enacted laws to restrict the practice of Catholicism (Christianity and the Founders). Rhode Island, for example, passed a law in 1719 that created civil restrictions for Catholics (Christianity and the Founders). This law was abolished, in 1783, at the end of the Revolutionary War (Christianity and the Founders). The disdain for Catholics in Georgia was of greater intensity (Ch...

... middle of paper ...

... Natural Law." Rasmusen Homepage. Web. 29 Jan. 2012. .

"Religion and the Federal Government: PART 1 (Religion and the Founding of the American Republic, Library of Congress Exhibition)." Library of Congress Home. Web. 29 Jan. 2012. .

Stanton, R. L. The Church and the Rebellion a Consideration of the Rebellion against the Government of the United States : And the Agency of the Church, North and South, in Relation Thereto. New York: Derby & Miller, 1864. Web. .

United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Web. 29 Jan. 2012. .

Walton, R. "Colonial America." RichmondAncestry.org. Web. 29 Jan. 2012. .

Show More
Related

  • The Colonies By 1763: A New Society?

    497 Words  | 1 Pages

    By 1763, although some colonies still maintained established churches, other colonies had accomplished a virtual revolution for religious toleration and separation of church and state. The Anglican Church was the only established denomination in England. In contrast, the colonies supported a great variety of churches. The largest were the Congregationalist, Anglican, and German churches, but many smaller denominations could be found through the colonies. In addition to this, a high percentage of Americans didn’t belong to any church. These differences could be attributed to the fact that many of the Europeans who immigrated to America didn’t fit in to or agree with the churches in their homelands.

    Read More

  • Calvinism Dbq

    768 Words  | 2 Pages

    It isn't as simple as saying that the church and state were connected or they weren't. For example, Henry VIII and Calvinism both utilized a strong church state connection, but Henry VIII used the church to empower the state, while Calvinism did the opposite. Some used the church and state relationship for gain of power and control, while for others it was truly what they believed was right. Church and state relationships are complex and deep. Each one was unique and added to the individual religion in its own

    Read More

  • Taking a Closer Look at The Salem Witch Trials

    900 Words  | 2 Pages

    The general court was set on a path to separating the beliefs of the church and the government. Luckily, years later a law would be passed in the Constitution that separates church and state.

    Read More

  • Protestant Reformation Dbq

    1260 Words  | 3 Pages

    Protestant England also did the same and started persecuting Catholic families and fines them for not attending a Protestant Service. The rival persecutions continued throughout the surrounding countries.

    Read More

  • Thomas Jefferson on Separation of Church and State

    2333 Words  | 5 Pages

    In each of these instances those supporting government involvement in, and endorsement of religion have justified their assumptions by referencing the words and beliefs of the founding fathers, most notably Thomas Jefferson. They point out that he, like most of the other founders, was a religious man, and that his writings exposed a conviction America was essentially a Christian nation. After all, wasn’t it Jefferson who spoke of inalienable rights bestowed upon man by God in the Declaration of Independence? A more detailed examination of his beliefs, though, reveals exactly the opposite was the case, as Jefferson was actually a champion of s...

    Read More

  • Religion in Early America

    870 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Protestants who emigrated to America knew from experience of the negative effect the government had on religion when the two were operating together. With the mindset of creating a new perfect holy land, they decided to make sure both church and state worked separately. While Puritans still did everything they could to enforce their beliefs in New England, including exiling those who did not attend church regularly, the core idea of separation of church and state was in the minds of the people. In order to have a country that values the freedom of religion, the church has to be out of any government policy. Any laws that are created around a single church’s faith, even if the majority of the population believes in them, threaten the freedoms of all other denominations. Ame...

    Read More

  • One Nation, Under God

    2046 Words  | 5 Pages

    With sounds of youthful laughter, conversations about the students’ weekends, and the shuffling of college ruled paper; students file into their classrooms and find their seats on a typical Monday morning. As the announcements travel throughout the school’s intercoms, the usual “Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance” becomes no longer usual but rather puzzling to some students. “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, indivisible, with liberty, and justice for all.” Confusion passes through some of the student’s minds. With the reoccurrence of “God” in the backdrop of American life, the relationship between church and state has become of little to no matter for American citizens just as it has with American students. While congress makes no law respecting an establishment of religion, the term “freedom of religion” presents itself to no longer be the definition of “free”, while also having its effects on debates today. According to Burt Rieff, in Conflicting Rights and Religious Liberty, “Parents, school officials, politicians, and religious leaders entered the battle over defining the relationship between church and state, transforming constitutional issues into political, religious, and cultural debates” (Rieff). Throughout the 20th century, many have forgotten the meaning of religion and what its effects are on the people of today. With the nonconformist society in today’s culture, religion has placed itself in a category of insignificance. With the many controversies of the world, religion is at a stand still, and is proven to not be as important as it was in the past. Though the United States government is based on separation of church and state, the gover...

    Read More

  • Freedom of Religion: THe Maryland Toleration Act

    901 Words  | 2 Pages

    Many British colonists, such as the Puritans, fled from religious persecution by the Church of England and for this reason, early American religious culture quickly gravitated towards holding an anti-Catholic bias. John Tracy Ellis wrote that a universal anti-Catholic bias was ‘vigilantly cultivated in all the thirteen colonies from Massachusetts to Georgia’ and that Colonial charters and laws contained specific proscriptions against Roman Catholics. In 1642, the Virginia Colony enacted a law prohibit Catholic settlers, and a similar statue was enacted in 1647 by the Massachusetts Bay Colony. In 1719, the Rhode Island Colony imposed civil restrictions on Catholics. In 1776, after the American Revolution and the enacting of the Declaration of Independence, Virginia, Penns...

    Read More

  • Religious Anxiety and the Social Pressures of Adherence

    2392 Words  | 5 Pages

    In “The New York Conspiracy Trials of 1741”, Horsmanden presents the sacredness of oaths, and the profound religious influence on everyday life in colonial America, especially in New York. The circumstances regarding the case represented in the 1741 trials embody colonial anxiety over religion and its justification through law and imperial domination. These anxieties caused many of the accused of the trials to begin confessing, out of fear of harsh civil punishments, which allowed for a larger plot to unfold. A crime as petty as larceny spawned into a national panic, a fear of a larger Catholic backed conspiracy to overthrow Protestant Anglo-American civil order. The religious dogma of Christianity had a great impact on the civil and social order of the early colonies. It exemplified the importance of oaths, which were made in reverence to God and also helped to maintain the hierarchical and social boundaries which limited people to specific social duties and liberties. Most civil order was justified through the numerous fundamentals alluding to biblical text as well as British concepts of civility. The religiosity of the overall spectrum of Colonial life, also represented a collective social anxiety in regards to disputes among other powers, especially the conflicting Catholic regimes striving for imperial domination, which led to further accusations of the parties convicted in the trials of 1741. The social orders justified through religious texts, paved the way for the unfair treatment of social outcasts, especially the Negroes and others deemed lesser of the social strata of Anglo colonial society; all which were legitimized through the dogmatic principles of Christianity, which resulted in the final outcome of the and unfair...

    Read More

  • Bring America Back to its Christian Roots

    667 Words  | 2 Pages

    Speaking personally, this excerpt has truly started to make me think more deeply on how the church relates to government and the systems that have been in use before the political activism seen among professing Christians today. Whereas before, I would say that there should be some amount of Christian morality put forth from within government. I now see that it does not have the power to change a nation and its people. Stead points out that the framers of the Constitution had a unique perspective on church and state because they had come out of a society where the church was run by the state. The King was the chief priest as well as the chief political ruler—something prohibited by God (2 Chron. 26). Therefore, the framers were those who supported a separation of duties: to paraphrase, they said “The government is there to protect the nation. The Church can do whatever it wants, as long as it is inside the bounds of the constitutional conditions.” (49)

    Read More

  • Anti-Catholic Riots In Philadelphia 1844

    807 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Newspaper Account of an Anti-Catholic Riot in Philadelphia expresses how much ethnicity and religion affected the eventual “consolidation of Philadelphia County in 1854” (Schrag 1). The riots were initiated by Protestants who wanted to prevent America from conforming to Romanism. This need of Protestants to prevent the spread of Romanism in America comes from the attitudes of Nativist against Catholic Immigrants. In reading the Newspaper Account of an Anti-Catholic Riot in Philadelphia, the reader can infer that the purpose of this article is to tell how the Nativists Riots caused by Catholic Immigrants killing an off-duty watchman, Catholic Immigrants objection to Protestant teachings in public schools and Catholic Immigrants motives to suspend Bible readings led to the “consolidation of Philadelphia into a

    Read More

  • Government and Religion: Praying in Public Schools

    1575 Words  | 4 Pages

    and religion. Should there be any real entanglement between “Church and State” at all? In a letter to a Baptist minister, Thomas Jefferson stated that, “the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of separation between church and State.” (http://www.free2pray.info/Danbury.html). The phrase, “a wall of separation between church and State”, is often quoted or referenced during discussions concerning the mixture of religion and politics. Politics and religion are generally perceived as two of the most controversial conversation subjects, often leading to heated debates over different issues. Yet, matters are certainly not any lighter, whenever you combine the two topics in a single discussion of their relationship to each other.

    Read More

  • Religion And The U.S. Constitution

    1823 Words  | 4 Pages

    The Constitution reflects our founder’s views of a secular government, protecting the freedom of any belief or unbelief. Some will argue religion, specifically Christianity, played a large role in the creation of this great nation’s government, the United States Constitution; however the facts reveal otherwise. The historian, Robert Middlekauff, observed, "the idea that the Constitution expressed a moral view seems absurd. There were no genuine evangelicals in the Convention, and there were no heated

    Read More

  • A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court

    1422 Words  | 3 Pages

    Concentration of power in a political machine is bad; and an Established Church is only a political machine; it was invented for that; it is nursed, cradled, preserved for that; it is an enemy to human liberty, and does no good which it could not better do in a split-up and scattered condition. That wasn’t law; it wasn’t gospel: it was only an opinion — my opinion, and I was only a man, one man: so it wasn’t worth any more than the pope’s — or any less, for that matter. (Twain

    Read More

  • Calvinism

    1927 Words  | 4 Pages

    McLoughlin, William G. (1971) New England Dissent, 1630-1833: The Baptists and the Separation of Church and State. 2 vols. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press

    Read More

More about An Inseparable Nation

Open Document